The Power of your Testimony

When I first started reading the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, something about it kept pulling me back to it. Every verse I read, every word that I started diving into gave me more and more information on the beautiful character of the Jesus we follow. The deeper I get, the more I want to share and talk.

There will absolutely be more posts referring to this passage of scripture but right now I want to focus on the power of your testimony.

Not your Stereotypical Message

Now this isn’t going to be your stereotypical ‘your mess is your message’ bit. Yes that’s powerful but I want to go deeper. So let’s do it.

We’re using John 4:1-45.

Let’s start by sharing some context.

The woman at the well was, as we know, a woman that was seen as someone with no moral standing. Not only was she a Samaritan woman that was looked down upon by the Jews (the Samaritans were only half-Jew and didn’t believe Scripture the same way they did), but she was a woman looked down on by her own people due to the choices she had made regarding men that she slept with. We know that she didn’t have many, if any, friends because the well was a place of social encounter and women usually went together. This woman, however, came alone.

Now we all know that Jesus wasn’t one to care about social constructs but the more you understand about them, the more you see just how incredible He is.

Jesus Crossed Boundaries

First off, He spoke to a woman alone. This is already breaking social protocol as that was just something that wasn’t done. This is such a beautiful insight into our Lord. He cared more about her soul than He did social rules. He took the initiative here because He valued not just her life here on earth but her eternal life, her soul.

Also, a Jewish rabbi would never ask a woman for a drink. But what did Jesus do? Ask her for a drink.

So already Jesus shows that He doesn’t give much mind to what the social rules say to do or not do. And because Jesus only did what God wanted Him to do, we can assume the same about God.

This is already mind blowing information and we haven’t even gotten started.

This is Important

Something really important to understand here is that Jesus didn’t immediately go at her, telling her to get her crap together. Instead, even though He knew everything about her and her life, He approached her in a way that she would actually hear what He had to say.

This in and of itself is a WHOLE word. I’ll be expanding in a future post about this topic but for now, suffice it to say that HOW you say what you need to say matters.

Going backward a bit, Jesus had been traveling for some time and was thirsty. His human-self was tired and He needed refreshment and rest. When the woman came to the well, He asked for a drink.

Her response is “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” [John 4:9 ESV]

Jesus answers, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” [John 4:10 ESV]

I rolled my eyes

I’m going to be honest. The first time I read this I rolled my eyes. Like of COURSE, Jesus. Of course you can’t just say “hey I’m thirsty and need water.” You had to go and make it all Jesus-y. But this, again, shows the selflessness of Jesus. He’s out here actually tired and quite thirsty, and instead of getting a drink, He puts her spiritual need, even when she couldn’t see it herself, above his physical requirement. He very easily could’ve gotten a drink first. But instead, He put HER first.

We can see in the scripture that she and Jesus go back and forth for a bit. 

Jumping to verse 12, she asks Jesus “Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”

She Responds

How she responds shares that she’s a woman of intelligence, maybe even a bit sarcastic. She seems to be trying to bait Jesus to say something that she can disagree with, something to get her riled up enough to warrant a response.

Again, I can relate to this. When I was most in spiritual need, I assumed nobody liked me, everybody hated me and that the world was out to get me. I was looking for any reason to get back at the world that had treated me so terribly. Now of course we can’t know for sure the exact tone that it was said in. But if she really is anything like me, definitely some sarcasm thrown in. This is why Jesus went about it this way. She wasn’t aware she HAD spiritual need and Jesus needed to make her aware first. He was slowly drawing her in, allowing her to open up and begin to get curious about what on earth He was talking about.

Step into her mind

Let’s step into the mind of this woman for a second. She probably doesn’t think too highly about herself or the Jewish Rabbis. She just wanted to get some water and ignore the man sitting at the well. Of course I can’t say this for certain, but as a woman who had a void that desperately needed to be filled, I can only imagine how she must have felt. Hearing this man begin to talk, she probably assumed He was going to judge her, put her down and make her feel even worse than she already did.

But instead, she’s shocked. Still super skeptical and on guard, but shocked and curious as to what this man has to say.

In verse 13, Jesus doesn’t even entertain her question. He doesn’t care about being right, He cares about winning her over, winning her soul. So He responds with “Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,”

How wonderful is it that Jesus didn’t get into an argument with her? That Jesus didn’t call her out, tell her she was wrong, tell her to get it together? Jesus is still holding a high standard but He’s approaching her with grace in a way that she’ll actually understand and not shut Him out.

In verse 15 she responds, “The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.””

I wish there were Explanations

Oh how I wish there was some sort of explanation or emojis to convey the tone of this message. This could just be the misunderstanding of the water Jesus spoke of, but it also likely could be a sarcastic answer, giving Him what He wanted to hear. But if this is the case, this still means that deep in her heart, a seed was planted and is starting to take root. In all of the sarcasm I can muster, especially in situations like this, there’s always a little hint of truth. So something inside of her started to soften and open to what He had to say.

In verses 17 and 18 Jesus calls out the fact that she’d been living in sin with all of these men. He didn’t start the conversation this way, instead it naturally moved this direction because of how Jesus guided it. This called her out and removed the doubt. She was aware that He was more than just a rabbi and that something about Him was special and important.

She Left her Water

In verse 28 she left her water jar behind and went to tell the town about what she had witnessed. She told them that He knew all she ever did and asked if He could be the Christ. Again, in her intelligence, she didn’t start proclaiming that Jesus was Christ. Instead, she offered it as an option to peak their curiosity and come see for themselves. At the time, women were seen as less intelligent and even insane. So she said things in a way that brought THEM to Christ.

Are you seeing how freaking incredible that is?

Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days.

John 4:39-40 ESV

Those people went to see this man and many of them believed. If she wouldn’t have gone and told them, they may have never believed. They also wanted to learn more to the point that they asked Jesus to stay and He did.

Read it again

I highly recommend that you read the passage for yourself if you haven’t already. And if you have, read it again.

That’s the power of your testimony. Not only do you embrace Him and all He’s done for you, all He’s revealed to you and through you, but also in how you share it. You don’t minimize it or avoid it, but you share it with His guidance in a way where the people around you will actually hear it.

Your testimony, your obedience, could mean the difference between a life or death, heaven or hell.

Your testimony can change someone’s life. Heck, your testimony could change your life. I wish we knew what happened to the woman after this. If she got her life together, if people saw her differently.

Her Testimony Changed Lives

But I also wonder if we don’t know because the most important thing is the fact that her testimony lead to so many having belief. I have so many questions and I hope to remember to ask them all when I get to heaven and I truly hope to see her there.

So why did I share the conversation, why not just get to the point about the power of the testimony? Because the context was needed to fully believe and understand the power of the story. The same is true for your testimony.

Your testimony isn’t just one event or moment. It’s a string of moments bound together by the love and sovereignty of God.

Use it wisely, openly. Don’t use it to condemn but to inspire and open the eyes of those who are to be changed by it.

Your story isn’t over and it’s not too messy to be used.

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